LIGHTNING RETURNS: FINAL FANTASY XIII allows players to customize its heroine, Lightning, in ways the series never has before. To celebrate, deviantART and Square Enix invite you to design your own customization of Lightning in the first ever contest of its kind! Submit now and show us your skills as a designer and as an artist. "Customization" means changing Lightning's look, body, apparel, weapons, or other accessories and anything else you wish to change on Lightning.

Contest Closed

Get inspired! Watch the trailer and view or select as references the LIGHTNING RETURNS: FINAL FANTASY XIII imagery at the link below.

Create your own "customization" of Lightning from LIGHTNING RETURNS: FINAL FANTASY XIII. Remember, please limit your work to FINAL FANTASY XIII trilogy content only. (Read details on "customization" in Official Rules)

Enter your artwork into the contest by using the SUBMIT ENTRY button below. Your entry must be a single .JPG or .PNG file and must be approximately 2,000 pixels in width by 550 pixels in height.

Original Sketch from FINAL FANTASY character designer Tetsuya Nomura*

Custom Xbox 360 console & controller**

$1,000 USD

Final Fantasy XIII trilogy on Xbox 360 (3 separate copies of Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2, and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII)

**If the LIGHTNING RETURNS: FINAL FANTASY XIII edition Xbox 360 console is not available in a configuration suitable to the Entrant's country of residence, Sponsor or Square Enix may replace it with a substitute Xbox 360 console or cash equivalent upon its sole discretion.

The Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Contest begins at 12:00 AM (PST) on February 11, 2014 and ends at 11:59pm (PST) on February 20, 2014.

Entrant must be at least 13 years old as of February 11, 2014

Entrant may reside anywhere in the world.

Entries must be received by 11:59:59PM (PST) on February 20, 2014 and be submitted through the contest gallery on deviantART;

The Work is your own original customization of Lightning. "Customization" means changing Lightning's look, body, apparel, weapons, or other accessories and anything else you wish to change on Lightning.

The Work may originate in any drawing medium but must be submitted as a single .JPG or .PNG file;

Your entry must be approximately 2,000 pixels in width by 550 pixels in height;

Licensed brushes and textures are acceptable as well as original assets from the Entrant's own work and visual elements from Final Fantasy XIII. Do not include the names of Lightning and/or Final Fantasy in your entry;

Entrant may use the material from the FINAL FANTASY XIII trilogy or the materials provided at the Contest Site but may not use characters that appear only in other Final Fantasy chapters;

Other requirements and restrictions apply and please read the Official Rules carefully.

The three winners will be selected by FINAL FANTASY main character designer Tetsuya Nomura. Judges will use the following criteria in whatever degree the judges believe appropriate:

Originality of the "customization" of Lightning

Overall Impact of the Work

Technical and Artistic Skill

Please read the Official Rules for additional judging information.

EACH WINNER WILL APPEAR ONE AT A TIME AND ONE PER DAY ON MARCH 7, 2014; MARCH 8, 2014; AND MARCH 9, 2014 IN HOME PAGE BILLBOARD TAKEOVERS.

DeviantART and Square Enix present the LIGHTNING RETURNS: FINAL FANTASY XIII Contest! Create your own custom version of Lightning in this first ever contest of its kind! Three grand prize winners will receive an original sketch from FINAL FANTASY character designer Tetsuya Nomura, $1,000 USD, a custom Xbox 360 console and controller, and more! Enter now!

WTF dA õ.O why don't you just change the "Judging in progress" and officially announce the winners? This looks so amateur... :/ BTW, I knew right from the beginning one of those entries would win XD but I expected at least one of them to be different, because I saw an awesome design that really deserved a prize. Not saying that the others didn't, tho. Everybody did a great job. Congrats to the winners :3

When there are these contests, I am excited and willing to work my hardest to make a great entry. I always see that digital artwork often wins these kinds of contests so I tried to make one of my entries digital, but I went traditional for my other two entries. It's hard to draw with a mouse. I tried to make original costumes that look beautiful. I wished there was more time with this contest, I definitely rushed with my entries. It's kind of discouraging because you want this win for recognition and for job potentials. Please check out my three entries:Hellfire's Dance: ai-don.deviantart.com/art/Ligh…Diamond Dust: ai-don.deviantart.com/art/Ligh…Azrael: ai-don.deviantart.com/art/Ligh…

You have a realy nice style, with a lot of spirit!!It's fun to practice with a mouse! After I lost my first tablet, I wasn't draw anything in a digital way. Than last year, to make a favour to a friend, I started to paint with a mouse, and it worked!It kills the index finger and no pressure-sensitivity, but better than nothing.Here, I painted this with mouse. Now I bought a genius mouse-pen, the cheapest way to have a tablet-like interface , it's half the price of the smallest bamboo, and still decent. And combined together some freeware painter program like GIMP/MyPaint is a good sollution for beginners, who have financial problems(like me). As a traditional artist, I recommend you mypaint after you buy a tablet, it's really painter-friendly!

No problem! The smallest/cheapest bamboo haven't got any extra, compared to the genius, pressure sensitivity is the same 1024 levels, and the work area is only a slightly bigger! I don't wanna talk you down from bamboo, this was my personal choice, but I really don't felt like paying double the price for the bamboo name, just because it's more popular. The talent is not in the tablet after all!The biger bamboo, what I really think is worth the price, those are over 250 euro/dollar , and I want a Intuos Pro Medium, and that's 440$. Whatever your choice will be, I wish you a lot of inspiration and time to make it real!

Well, I do have complaints, and I am sad that my entry totally sucked, BUT I'm also happy for the winners. So, congrats to the winners... and now I will go weep in a corner for a while. (or not) I can't help it if I'm still at kind of a beginner right? It's not my fault that the contest entries varied from beginners to professionals rather than making it a fair fight Oh well, next time then.

I really believed that thanks to this contest I had the opportunity to become "professional" artist. To write to all people I know: "See? I am a pro now!"but I worked too much on the design. I was changing parts of the armor until the last day and that slowed me a lot. So I basically didn't finished my entry properly and published it as is in the last 15 min. Of course I can't win, I should not win, because my entry is a WIP. Then I saw that originality of the design was not important. It was like a "bad luck" for me. Effort had no importance at all, only luck. This is wrong! So wrong! So apart from charging with my own grudge, I will quit visual arts for a while, I totally lost my inspiration to draw.

Apart from all that, what I want to say to people who complain about the professionals who entered the contest:1st: You cant avoid professionals to enter the contest when there is an important monetary prize. The uncle of a 13 years old could draw the entry.

2nd: Try to become professional too! But it will be hard to achieve! Such is the system, G+ and FB too. You could draw your own Mona Lisa and get 20+ but that one that published a selfie in bikini will get for her sketches 200+. Think well if it worth to draw hard and sacrifice your dignity for years until people slowly, very slowly begin to consider you professional. If you have any other talent apart from drawing, go and explore it! keep drawing for pleasure.

to people who argue about traditional vs digital: there are some traditional art that beats digital one, go and look at the pieces made using air brushes, or drawings of 50 inches. I personally would prefer to do traditional paintings but it is cheaper and cleaner to use a tablet. I sometimes browse the artistic filters in PS just to enjoy that traditional art touch of the drawing. something that hardly could be achieved with PS, the real-life brush is adding beauty in a natural way to the painting. and still I don't think a chimpanzee can draw a masterpiece using PS. Talent still matters. maybe you could complain about people using 3D posing programs. They don't have to know nothing bout shadows and anatomy or perspective....(and yes it is easier using a program, you have not instant undo in traditional art)

yep! It's a normal human reaction. Are you never getting upset?Maybe was not cool to complain about it in public, but getting upset is very normal reaction. I would delete my comment if there was a way to do it.

Congrats to the jaw dropping entries I entered the contest knowing I have very slim chances to win, and because contest help me push my limits. I kept giving myself that hope though I might just win hahaI am kind of jealous to be honest mostly because I'll probably never be able to come up with such art. It is impressive what they did in such a short time, pro or not.

People saying 13 years old didn't have a chance, well I am 28 and didn't stand a chance too XD

Well for what it is worth, I think we've all outdone ourselves from the entries I've seen, some brilliant ideas out there.

yeah, when the Tomb raider reborn contest was over and lost I thought there will be never again another chance to make a work for Square Enix, and now it came this one about final fantasy and even if we lost we hope there will be others contests and chances like this one in the future and for sure we will get better than we are now.

Pros vs non-pros: It just so happens pros have more skill, so they have a higher chance of winning. If you wanted the judges to throw a bone to the amateur artists, that's wishful thinking on your part. They were under no obligation to do so.

Digital vs traditional: Irrelevant actually. They picked the best looking art, which just happened to be digital.

Nomura rumors: Based on my knowledge of the situation, there has been no official word on whether Nomura actually judged the artworks. So all this 'he did' or 'he did not' stuff is purely speculation. Little point in getting all worked up over rumors.

Vague rules: Yeah, I suppose I'll grant you this one. Sucks if you tripped over a technicality, though I don't think it would've made too much difference in the results. Seems like the judges were judging based largely on skill, so unless you feel you can out-skill the current winners, it wouldn't have helped you to have known anyway.

In any case, though it's not really my place, I thank you for your efforts. Even if you feel like maybe the officials aren't acknowledging your time, work and/or concerns, there are many people here (including myself) that do realise the effort you put into your submission and will support you on that basis.

I'd give you a jar of cookies if I could. Well said, and I absolutely agree with you.

There are always going to be someone more skilled than others. Wishing for a fair fight is like wishing for a blue, rainbow farting, unicorn to come dropping out of the sky. It's not gonna happen. I still remember the UIL Texas state competitions back in the high school years. I played the trumpet, and that competition....just showed me how much I needed to practice. I managed to beat a lot of the other competitors, most of whom had 2-3 years more experience than me (I was a freshman) because I practiced a lot, but there were some that were pro level good. I mean, they were freaking good. They beat the stuffing out of me. :'| Would it be fair to say that, because they're more skilled than others, that they can't participate in the competition? No. They had every right to compete just as much as me. I just didn't practice as much as them. Competitions are just that: the best win. They're not a pity-party contest.

I do agree that the rules were pretty vague though. They should have made some effort to clean it up and make it clear.

And I understand why many are upset about the rules. Even if they didn't have a good chance at winning anyway, specific guidelines would've meant they'd have been better equipped for the competition. Not being able to perform to the best of your ability due to a technicality is indeed disappointing. Even if they didn't win, knowing they gave it their best shot would've made the loss easier to accept.

Ah, a lot of people shared their entries here, so let me in!!! Please check it!madeintheheavens.deviantart.co…madeintheheavens.deviantart.co…To tell the truth, I probably not participate, if I realize sooner, this contest is not an exclusive competition for amateurs like me! I enjoyed to making my entries, but it's such a vaste of time and effort, if others barely can see it...The contes rules are also fooled me too, duhh!!Congrats for the winners, they deserve the attention!

The amount of negative comments about this contest doesn't surprise me. DA has always been very crap about how their contests are worded, so if you want to enter a future contest, I highly suggest you hound the contest page itself so that another mod will actually go through the effort of wording out the contest to be more specific about the rules so you know EXACTLY what it's telling you to do. I remember a long time ago when they had an okami contest, the rules were incredibly vague, and in the end I think more than half of the entries didn't fallow those same vague rules, and it got one hell of a backlash. The contest ended up disappearing into oblivion after that, lol!

Congrats to the winners though!. I'm wondering though if they made a list or page specifically to showcase the entries that made it into the top 50.

Congrats to all three winners I guess I still wont regret that I joined the contest.

Anyways, what if there are such things as consolation prices to all non winning entries (only to be fair to all contestants, even though we couldnt win 3 winning prizes) just to make lots and lots of costumes for the each future updates? So that way more and more from our contest costume designs means more variety.